Abū ʿUbaida Muslim ibn Abī Karīma

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Abū ʿUbaida Muslim ibn Abī Karīma at-Tamīmī ( Arabic أبو عبيدة مسلم بن أبي كريمة التميمي) was an Islamic legal scholar who played a leading role in the Ibādite community of Basra during the late Umayyad and early Abbasid times and sent the so-called "messengers of knowledge" ( ḥamalat al-ʿilm ) to the various provinces of the Islamic empire to teach the Ibādite there and established their own imamates in various places . Abū ʿUbaida himself is also considered an imam by today's Ibādites.

While the Maghreb Ibādite author Ibn Sallām (st. After 887) considered Abū ʿUbaida to be the most important Ibaidite personality after Jābir ibn Zaid al-Azdī, the early Ibaadite sources from Oman gave him considerably less importance. Abū ʿUbaida's work is hardly mentioned in non-Ibādite sources.

Life

One of the most important sources for the life of Abu ʿUbaida is the Kitāb as-Siyar of Abū l-ʿAbbās Ahmad ibn Saʿīd asch-Shammāchī (d. 1522) from the Jabal Nafūsa . This in turn draws its information from an earlier work, the Kitāb of Abū Sufyān Mahbūb ibn ar-Ruhail, who was the last imam of the Ibādites of Basra at the beginning of the 9th century.

Origin and early years

Abū ʿUbaida was of Iranian descent and Maulā of the Arab tribe Tamīm. His father's name is given as Kūdīn, Karzīn or Kūrīn. After Al-Jahiz Abu'Ubaidas saint of known was Charidschit 'Urwa ibn'Udaiya (d. After 680), who after the battle of Siffin had operated the cleavage of the Kharijites of'Alī ibn Abi Talib and brother of the famous Charidschitenführer Mirdās ibn Udaiya was.

Abū ʿUbaida earned his living as a basket maker ( qaffāf ). In his youth he attended the lessons of the Sheikhs Dumām ibn as-Sāʾib from Oman, Jafar ibn as-Sammāk (or Sammān) and Suhār ibn al-ʿAbd. According to al-Shammāchī, he was imprisoned during the governorship of al-Hajjaj ibn Yūsuf in Iraq, but released again after his death in 714.

Activity as community leader and scholar

Together with his previous teachers Dumām and Jafar and a certain Abū Nūh Sālih ibn Nūh ad-Dahhān, he played a leading role in the Ibaditic community of Basra from now on. The relationship with the new Umayyad governor in Iraq, Yazīd ibn al-Muhallab , was relatively relaxed because his sister ʿĀtika herself belonged to the Ibadi community.

According to the Maghrebinic tradition, it was also Abū ʿUbaida who sent a delegation to the caliph ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz in 719 . The delegation was at court just as ʿAbd al-Malik, the caliph's son, died. After the death of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz in 720, however, the relationship with the ruling house deteriorated again because the new caliph Yazid II was hostile to the Muhallabids, who acted as patrons of the Ibadis. During this time, some Ibadis, including Abū ʿUbaida's teacher Jafar, took part in the uprising of Yazīd ibn al-Muhallab and sacrificed their lives.

Abū ʿUbaida was reserved about such actions because he cherished the hope of being able to convert the caliphs to his teaching, and also feared that an "exodus" ( ḫurūǧ ) like that of the Azraqites would again be doomed to failure. Ash-Shammāchī describes Abū ʿUbaida as a quietist . When he was asked what prevented him from "moving out" when all his followers would support him, he is said to have replied: "I don't want that". During this time he distinguished himself primarily as a law teacher , theologian and mufti and gathered students from different areas of the Islamic empire around him. One of his most important students was Rabīʿ ibn Habīb al-Farāhīdī from Oman, who took over the leadership of the Ibādite community of Basra after his death.

Abū ʿUbaida's propaganda network

According to the report of ash-Shammāchī, it was the impatience of his followers that led Abū ʿUbaida to become politically active. However, he did not choose the path of open rebellion, but developed a new form of "stepping forward " ( ẓuhūr ) by making Basra the center of a propaganda movement that was supposed to prepare uprisings not in the city itself, but in other places. These uprisings would ultimately bring about a universal Ibaadite imamate to be built on the ruins of the Umayyad state. In order to achieve his goal, Abū ʿUbaida transformed his teaching college in Basra, which has meanwhile been attended by students from various areas of the Islamic Empire, into a secret propaganda center. He was assisted by another Ibādit sheikh named Abū Maudūd Hādschib at-Tāʾī, who set up a central cash register ( bait al-māl ) with which the company could be financed and also ensured the supply of weapons.

In order to keep the project secret from the state authorities, Abū ʿUbaida practiced the principle of "secrecy" ( kitmān ) from now on . Classes were moved to a basement and a guard was posted in front of the door who moved an iron chain when strangers appeared, so that Abū ʿUbaida had time to interrupt classes and continue his work as a basket maker if danger threatened. Rigorous discipline prevailed within the community led by Abū ʿUbaida. Abū ʿUbaida excluded parishioners if they disagreed with his teaching and determined when they were allowed to do the Hajj . In particular, he did not tolerate qadaritic teachings in their ranks. He justified his predestinian stance with the saying: "Whoever admits that God knows about things before their existence has also recognized their predestination."

As a "messenger of knowledge" ( ḥamalat al-ʿilm ), his students were then sent back in groups to the various provinces of the empire in order to gather followers there and finally to come forward. Abū ʿUbaida put two men in front of each of these groups, of whom, if successful, one should hold the imamate and the other the office of Qādī . After Ash-Shammāchī he sent such teams to the Maghreb , Yemen , the Hadramaut , to Oman and to Khorasan . Apparently there were Ibādite congregations in some of these places before, because it is reported, for example, of an Ibaadite missionary named Salama ibn Saʿīd in Qairawān , who sent a delegation from ḥamalat al-ʿilm to Basra for training with Abū ʿUbaida.

The establishment of imamats

Abū ʿUbaida's propaganda efforts were successful in several places. During the turmoil of the third Fitna (744–750), Ibādites led by him were able to successfully establish imamates in two places. The first imamat was that of ʿAbdallāh ibn Yahyā al-Kindī, called Tālib al-Haqq, who rose in 746 in Hadramaut and in 747 was able to take Sanaa , the capital of southern Arabia, as well as Mecca and Medina. Ash-Shammāchī reports that during this time the alide ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Hasan al-Muthannā also turned to Abū ʿUbaida in order to get support from him for a planned uprising, but Abū nteUbaida refused to cooperate with him. After the rebellion of the Tālib al-Haqq was suppressed by Umayyad troops in 748, 750 Ibādites in Oman who worked with Abū ʿUbaida elevated a descendant of the former Omani royal house, al-Dschulandā ibn Masʿūd, to the new Ibaadite imam. This Omani imamate also collapsed a short time later.

In the 750s, several Berbers from Tripolitania came to Basra for training. One of the first of them was Ibn Mughtīr of the Nafūsa tribe. He returned to his home village of Iǧnaw in Jabal Nafusa before 757 and then worked there as a mufti. Later the three Berbers ʿĀsim as-Sadrātī, Abū Dāwūd from Kebili , Ismāʿīl ibn Dirār from Ghadames and the Persian ʿAbd ar-Rahmān ibn Rustam from Qairawān were sent to Basra. They received lessons from Abū Ubaida for five years, after which he sent them back to their homeland with the task of establishing a new imamate. As a future imam he gave them the Yemenite Abū l-Chattāb al-Maʿāfirī , who had come to them in Basra. Taken together, the five men are considered to be the ḥamalat al-ʿilm , the actual Ibādite apostles of North Africa. Abū ʿUbaida's plan was carried out. In 757 the Ibaadite dignitaries of Tripolitania held a secret meeting in Saiyād near Tripoli , during which they made Abū l-Chattāb imam.

The Ibādite tribes of the Hauwāra and Nafūsa then conquered all of Tripolitania, including the city of Tripoli, which became the seat of the imamate, together with other tribes under the leadership of the new imam. In the summer of 758 they took Qairawān, which was then owned by Sufrit Kharijites . At the time of its peak, the Imamate of Abū l-Chattāb al-Maʿāfirī included Tripolitania and Tunisia as well as the east of today's state of Algeria . As early as 761, however, the Imam state was destroyed by an Abbasid army, and Abū l-Chattāb himself was killed in the battle. Another of Abū ʿUbaida's "transmitters of knowledge", ʿAbd ar-Rahmān ibn Rustam, managed to flee to the west, take possession of the city of Tāhert and found a new Ibaadite imamate there. His descendants, the Rustamids , ruled large parts of North Africa until the beginning of the 10th century.

His end

Not much is known about Abū ʿUbaida's fate, except that he is said to have suffered a stroke. According to asch-Shammāchī he died during the reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Mansūr (r. 753-775).

Works

  • Letter on the zakat practice that Abū ʿUbaida addressed to a diaspora community. Its authenticity has not yet been examined. The question of who is to collect the tithe ( ʿušr ) and to which people in need it is to be distributed is dealt with. Some see the addressee of the letter in the Tripolitan community of Abū l-Chattāb al-Maʿāfirī . The text was published under the title Risālat Abī-Karīma (sic!) Fī z-zakāt li-l-imām Abi-l-H̱aṭṭāb al-Maʿāfirī in Oman in 1982.
  • The Ibādite literature also contains various other letters that Abū ʿUbaida and Hādschib at-Tāʾī are said to have addressed to the Ibaadite communities in Tripolitania and Oman.
  • Abū ʿUbaida also compiled a collection of hadiths that he had received from his teachers, Jābir ibn Zaid, Jaʿfar ibn as-Sammāk, and Suhār al-ʿAbdī. However, the text is lost.
  • His legal questions under the title Masāʾil Abī ʿUbaida have been preserved in previously unordered manuscripts, the authenticity of which has yet to be examined. He is one of the most important sources of the ibāḍitischen legal scholar Bišr ibn Ġānim († against 815) in his three-volume al-Mudawwana al-kubrā.

literature

  • Patricia Crone , Fritz Zimmermann: The Epistle of Sālim ibn Dhakwān . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001, pp. 303-305.
  • Amr Ennami: Studies in Ibadhism (al-Ibāḍīyah) . Sultanate of Oman, Ministry of Endowments & Religious Affairs , Muscat 2008, pp. 95-124.
  • Josef van Ess : Theology and society in the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Hijra. A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam . 6 volumes. De Gruyter, Berlin 1991-97. Volume II, pp. 193-198, 202-208.
  • Tadeusz Lewicki : al-Ibāḍīya. In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Volume III, pp. 648a-660b, here particularly 649b-651a.
  • Mubārak Ibn-ʿAbdallāh Ibn-Ḥāmid ar-Rāšidī: al-Imām Abū-ʿUbaida Ibn-Abī-Karīma at-Tamīmī wa-fiqhuhū . Maṭābiʿ al-Wafāʾ, Ṣalṭanat ʿUmān 1992. (Inaugural dissertation, University of Ez-Zitouna )
  • Ulrich Rebstock: The Ibāḍites in the Maġrib (2nd / 8th 4th / 10th century). The story of a Berber movement in the guise of Islam. Berlin 1983. (online at: menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de )
  • John C. Wilkinson: Ibāḍism: Origins and Early Development in Oman . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, pp. 166-177.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ The modern Ibaadite author Ennami describes him as the "second imam of the Ibaadite community of Basra" (p. 95).
  2. ↑ Cf. Ibn Sallām: Kitāb fīhi: Badʾ al-islām wa-šarāʾiʿ ad-dīn . Eds. Werner Schwartz and aš-Šaiḫ Sālim b. Yaʿqūb. Bibliotheca Islamica, Volume 33. Wiesbaden 1986, p. 110, lines 4-5: “Basrenser. According to nachābir b. Zaid. He is one of the greatest scholars among our masters after Ǧābir. ”And Wilkinson 171f.
  3. ↑ See Wilkinson 166-177.
  4. ↑ See Wilkinson 163-165.
  5. ↑ See Crone / Zimmermann 303, Lewicki 649b.
  6. ↑ See Ennami 95-97.
  7. ↑ Cf. on him G. Della Vida: Art. "Mirdās ibn Udaiya" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Volume VII, pp. 123a-124a.
  8. ↑ a b cf. Ennami 105.
  9. ↑ See Lewicki 650a, Wilkinson 167f.
  10. ↑ a b Cf. Crone / Zimmermann 303.
  11. ↑ See Ennami 111
  12. ↑ a b Cf. Lewicki 650a.
  13. ↑ See Wilkinson 170f.
  14. ↑ See Wilkinson 173.
  15. ↑ a b cf. Wilkinson 172.
  16. ↑ See Crone / Zimmermann 304.
  17. ↑ See Wilkinson 176.
  18. ↑ See Ennami 110.
  19. ↑ Cf. van Ess TuG II 202.
  20. ↑ Cf. van Ess TuG II 205.
  21. ↑ a b Cf. Lewicki 650b.
  22. ↑ See Rebstock 13.
  23. ↑ See Ennami 108f.
  24. ↑ See Ennami 120f.
  25. ↑ See Rebstock 60-75, Ennami 115.
  26. ↑ Cf. van Ess TuG II 197.
  27. ↑ See also van Ess TuG II 198.
  28. ↑ See Wilkinson 175.
  29. ↑ Abū Ġānim Bišr ibn Ġānim al-Ḫurāsānī: al-Mudawwana al-kubrā . Ed. Muṣṭafā b. Ṣāliḥ Bāǧū. Oman 2007. Volume 1, pp. 20–21 (Introduction)
  30. ^ Fuat Sezgin: History of Arabic literature. Volume 1, p. 586; there the title al-Mudawwana aṣ-ṣuġrā is to be deleted; it represents part of the work under the title al-Mudawwana (al-kubrā).
  31. ↑ On the manuscript collection see also: Josef van Ess : Investigations on some ibāḍite manuscripts. In: Journal of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (ZDMG), 126 (1976), pp. 38–42.
personal data
SURNAME Abū ʿUbaida Muslim ibn Abī Karīma
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abū ʿUbaida Muslim ibn Abī Karīma at-Tamīmī (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Islamic legal scholar
DATE OF BIRTH 7th century
DATE OF DEATH 8th century